Low Emission Case ®

17 Jan 2014

Preventative conversation of a museum’s cultural heritage: from external physical agents to chemical agents inside the display case.

In the last decade, the increasing sensibility toward preventative conservation of a museum’s cultural heritage has led to the manufacture of display cases with the highest levels of airtightness. This has inevitably led to the focus being moved to the materials that make up the display case and their potential for harmful emissions. The more damaging they are, the more airtight the environment containing the works of art must be.
Along with physical agents – temperature, humidity and light – which can cause changes, such as the loss of color, the formation of mold and the corrosion of artifacts, now we’ve also begun to look at the risks of chemical agents in sealants, adhesives and paints. There is a greater focus on some substances that are considered particularly harmful, such as formaldehyde, formic acid, acetic acid, oximes, volatile sulfur compounds and VOCs (volatile organic compounds).

Lack of regulation about materials to avoid in building display cases.

Despite ever increasing requests from museum directors to test these substances, an analysis protocol still hasn’t been developed and there are no set limits or reference values to establish whether a display case is compliant.

Goppion’s commitment.

Goppion has always distinguished itself for the strong sense of responsibility it has toward its clients. The company is aware of the need to accurately test the materials it uses in its own products, and this goes for ensuring the highest levels of airtightness as well. Thus, for some time now, we have worked alongside public and private research institutes to put materials found on the market through quantitative and qualitative analysis testing.

Goppion’s procedures.

The research we’ve carried out has allowed us to come up with a refined analysis procedure that includes thermal stress air flux testing (90° C) of materials with the proper systems to capture various substances to research with sophisticated investigation methods (GC-MS, HPLC).
Thanks to these procedures, we have been able to come up with a process of selecting the right materials to use, choosing only those that don’t contain undesirable substances and with the lowest level of VOC emissions. Through this process, we work exclusively with the best international suppliers.

Filtering of air inside.

A further risk to the artwork on display can be found in the possibility that it was made with off-gassing materials. To protect against this, our display cases can include specific air filtering systems.

Goppion’s display cases and the lowest achievable emission factor.

Thus we can verify that Goppion’s display cases are built with materials that comply with the lowest achievable emission factor that the market currently offers.

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